All Quiet On The Western Front: Film Analysis

World War I, referred to as the Great War, is depicted tragically, but no less accurately, by “All Quiet on the Western Front.” In detail, the film accurately portrays the horrific realities of World War I.

During the Great War, government propaganda manipulated civilians’ thoughts, which led them to believe that the war was worth fighting for, and thus convinced individuals to go to war. “All Quiet on the Western Front” begins by painting a picture in which a professor teaching Paul and his classmates emphasizes on how the war is in need of men of character and strong will, who will triumph as brave heroes. Moving on, the professor, imbued with admiration, exclaims that Germany is a country of success which needs their help, which is used

Throughout “All Quiet on the Western Front”, the viewer sees the appearance of barbed-wire barricades, parapets, and crooked trenches. These were common features to a trench. Where barbed-wire barricades were used as a defence, as well as a deadly weapon to kill enemies, parapets were piled up earth and sandbags used to protect soldiers from bullets and shrapnel. Also, the crooked trenches depicted are used to show a common feature trenches were made with in World War I in order to make them safer, as explosions could be contained and one could not shoot along the entire trench. In addition, the scene where one of the inexperienced soldiers falls into the poison gas filled trench, and Kat is about to shoot him to rid him of his pain, shows the use of lethal gas in the Great War by nations to kill masses of people. The poisonous gases would usually inflict serious injuries, and later death, upon soldiers, to which others, mercifully, would kill the injured soldier, to give them a painless death. Moreover, the depiction of machine guns and poisonous gases, alongside trench warfare, is used to imply that military advances and defences for these tactics were the reason why a stalemate occurred in World War